Joel Hoffman has had a dual vocation for the past 30 years. He is an attorney concentrating his practice in the area of construction litigation. At the same time he has had an active photography business photographing weddings, bar mitzvahs, baptisms, and other family and corporate events.

He began photography in the film era with an Argus C3 camera shooting auto races at Marlboro Raceway in Prince George’s County in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. In the mid to late 80’s and early 90’s he photographed for the Victorian Lyric Opera Company shooting their head shots and documenting their Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. Because of his Construction litigation experiences he has had the opportunity to photograph architectural interiors and exteriors for several architectural and engineering firms. He has photographed jewelry, fur and Leather product catalogs for various companies, and has worked on numerous projects with a variety of graphic designers in both New York and Washington D.C.

Mr. Hoffman has been an active member of the North Bethesda Camera Club for 30 years. In addition to his law practice and other photographic endeavors, he teaches photography to developmentally challenged individuals and teaches courses on portraiture and on the equipment used to create artificial light.

For the past 10 years he has partnered with his favorite photography partner, Roy Sewall, to take on the daunting challenge of shooting every architectural structure on Sixteenth Street in the District of Columbia from the Silver Spring, Maryland line to Lafayette Park in front of the White House. Currently, he and Mr. Sewall are working with the Historical Society of Washington to arrange a donation to it of their collection of several thousand images. They are also exploring ways to promote their project to the residents of Sixteenth Street as well as to encourage other photographers to documents other locations in the District of Columbia and elsewhere.